


The Pause Between Breaths

by zelda_zee



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda to episode 2.03, <i>The Good Traitor</i>. Spoilers for that episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pause Between Breaths

Aramis’ face is drawn, his lips pressed together in a thin, sharp line. There’s a tightness at the corners of his eyes which makes his crow’s feet appear and Porthos studies them with interest, unaccustomed to seeing lines mar Aramis’ normally smooth countenance. Of equal interest is the single vertical crease between his brows, which would normally speak of concentration on his task, but not this time. When taken in conjunction with the other signs of strain and the general unhappiness Aramis radiates as he bends over Porthos, silently plucking miniscule threads from the wound in his thigh with a pair of fine-pointed tweezers, it indicates something amiss. Something, that is, besides the fact that the hole that the arrow left in Porthos’ thigh is red and swollen and looking on the verge of infection.

It is easier to watch Aramis’ face than it is to watch what he is doing. Porthos isn’t squeamish, has seen all sorts of grisly wounds over the years, far worse than what he’s got at the moment. Still, there is nothing comfortable about the tweezers touching his raw flesh, no matter how careful Aramis is – and he is careful, as he makes each precise and efficient movement in the pause between breaths, that same brief instant of absolute stillness which he uses when he takes a shot.

Porthos prefers to distract himself by studying his friend’s face at length, which is why he sees what his usual cursory attention would have missed – there is something weighing heavily on Aramis’ mind. Porthos has no doubt of it. Aramis is, after all, not a difficult man to read, if you know what to look for.

Aramis’ hands, as he picks away at the wound with the tweezers, are steady. Aramis’ hands are always steady. He has similarly tended to Porthos in any number of odd places and situations, from battlefields to taverns to, once, a bouncing carriage in full flight from a band of ruffians. He has dug shot and arrows out of Porthos, stitched up wounds caused by bullets, daggers and swords. Aramis has nursed him when he’s been beaten and clubbed and nearly blown to pieces by an explosion that left him fortuitously deaf for three days, and therefore unable to hear Aramis cursing at him.

He’s never said as much to Aramis, but it seems something like a miracle to Porthos that anyone who is as skilled a soldier as he, who is as good at wrecking destruction on his enemies – and of reveling in doing so – is also a healer of distinctive talent. But that’s Aramis – the man is a mass of contradictions, and Porthos, who thinks of himself as certain and consistent in belief and action, has learned, for the most part, to accept those parts of his friend that he does not – cannot quite – understand.

Aramis works quickly, with singular attention, so that when Porthos places a hand on his wrist and stills him, Aramis looks up, blinking a few times to refocus his vision.

“What is it?” he asks. “More brandy?” He reaches for the bottle, one that Porthos had drunk nearly half of before he’d let Aramis anywhere near his leg.

Porthos shakes his head, squeezing Aramis’ wrist. “There is something troubling you.”

Aramis raises his eyebrows, giving Porthos a look of exasperation with which he is quite familiar and a smile that is bright and distracting, and not in any way true. “You lie here, with a hole in your leg, one that went untreated for far too long, one that, I might add, you made worse when you yanked that arrow out, and that is now on the verge of a nasty infection, and you ask what troubles me?”

Porthos gives him a steady look. “What else is troubling you? Because there is something else.”

“Not in the least,” Aramis says. “Now hush, and let me work.”

It's distinctly unpleasant, the little tugs and pricks of tweezer to inflamed flesh that make him want to shove Aramis away, in fact, shove him right through the wall and into the next room. But Porthos curls his hands into fists and breathes steadily through his nose, in, out, in, out.

He watches the stillness of Aramis’ face as he works, the dark fan his eyelashes make against his cheek. He looks flushed now in the heat from the lanterns, but earlier, when he had entered the room in which Porthos had been deposited upon their return to the garrison, he had been uncharacteristically pale, his hat clutched in a white–knuckled fist. And rather than chide him and curse his recklessness as was Aramis' habit when Porthos had sustained an injury, he just sat quietly at the side of the bed and drew back the covers, biting his lip on a hiss as he took in the damage.

A lock of hair slips from behind Aramis’ ear and falls across his forehead and Porthos has the urge to touch it.

“There,” Aramis says, putting the tweezer down. “So much for the easy part.”

Porthos groans, for he knows Aramis is right. He halfway wishes Athos was here. A hard right to the jaw would be just the thing to put him out of his misery.

“Ready?” Aramis asks, holding up the bottle of spirits. It’s not brandy, but some concoction of Aramis’ own making, alcohol and herbs and God knows what else, designed to purge ill humors from the body. All Porthos knows is it burns as badly as brandy when Aramis pours it out and he ends up roaring like a beast, tears filling his eyes and spilling over, quite beyond his control.

“God damn it,” he gasps, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“I know,” Aramis says softly. “I’m sorry.” He lays a gentle hand on Porthos’, where it’s clamped around a fistful of heavy linen sheet. Aramis is always kind in these moments when he gives pain, always sympathetic to the suffering he causes.

Porthos pants, gritting his teeth as the agony slowly recedes. “Fucking hell,” he growls.

“I know,” Aramis says again. He cups Porthos’ cheek and Porthos turns his face into Aramis’ hand. It’s a sign of weakness, but in the present circumstances he doesn’t care. He’ll take the comfort Aramis offers without hesitation. He knows Aramis will never speak of it after, and neither will he.

“Shall I proceed?” Aramis asks.

Porthos sighs heavily. “Just get it over with as fast as you can.”

Aramis is quick with a needle, fingers deft and sure, stitches small and uniform. Even working on the mess that this wound is, too long untreated, ragged – edged and deep, his red-tipped fingers fly, knitting Porthos together again.

Porthos fades in and out. His vision narrows to Aramis’ profile, that lock of hair hanging free, that uncharacteristic tightness at the corner of his eye, then grays out altogether, only to spark back into painful alertness by the nauseating pull of thread through flesh.

“Breathe,” Aramis reminds him, and he takes a deep breath, exhales it all slowly, then takes another. “Good,” Aramis says. “Almost there.”

Porthos is pouring sweat, wonders if he’s feverish. Aramis inserts the needle yet again and Porthos’ head falls back onto the pillow as his vision swims.

“Tell me,” he grits out between clenched teeth, seeking something to take his mind off of it. “What is it, weighing upon you? Did something happen while I was, um, away? Is it Athos? D’Artagnan?”

“No, our friends are well. Do not concern yourself. It is nothing.”

“It is not nothing, Aramis. That, I can see very clearly.”

Aramis stops his stitching and looks at Porthos. “You are like a dog with a bone, do you know that? Why can’t you just pass out like a good patient?” They stare at each other for a long moment, then Aramis bends his head and slides the needle again into Porthos’ skin. Porthos grunts at the sensation, then takes another deep breath. Silence stretches and Porthos waits, because Aramis has never been able to outwait his silences. Sooner or later the urge to confide or confess becomes too strong and Aramis is constitutionally incapable of resisting it.

“Fine,” Aramis says quietly. “If you must know. It was my fault, you getting shot, being taken.”

Porthos scoffs. “Aramis –”

“No, it was,” Aramis insists. “I had one job to do, and I failed in it. I let myself become distracted and this mess is the result.”

“There was a lot going on,” Porthos says. “You couldn’t keep an eye on everything. You expect too much of yourself.”

Aramis makes a final stitch, ties a quick, tidy knot and snips the thread. Porthos breathes a heartfelt sigh of relief and sags against the pillows.

Aramis sits back, looking at his bloodied hands resting on his lap. “I was there to protect you – you, and the others. I had a clear line of sight. And I failed, and because of that you came very near to being killed. You cannot imagine what I feared was being done to you in the time you were captive. I’m sure it is only that Perales was too busy with Tariq and his cipher that you were spared further harm.”

“They had little interest in me,” Porthos said. “They had bigger fish to fry than a lowly Musketeer.”

“And thank God for that,” Aramis says vehemently. “But I cannot forgive myself.” He shakes his head. “It was all my fault.”

“Nonsense,” Porthos says. “You are one man, Aramis, and you are not perfect. There was too much confusion, things went wrong too fast. You couldn’t have done anything.”

Aramis looks up, his eyes angry, but Porthos knows it is anger directed inward, not at him. “My attention was diverted. It was unforgivable.”

“Please tell me it was not a pretty face that distracted you,” Porthos says in an awkward attempt at levity.

Aramis looks at him in surprise. “No, it was not that. It was… It was not that.”

“Well,” Porthos sighs, seeing that Aramis will not impart that particular detail. “You cannot change what is past, and I will be as good as new, in a few days. Whatever it was that you feel you did wrong, I know you will not let it happen again.”

“You have my word it will not,” Aramis says. He lays a bloody hand on Porthos’ thigh above the wound.

Porthos smiles, certain that Aramis will now watch him like a hawk. A very protective mother hawk. There is no one so devoted as Aramis when he is feeling guilty.

“You feel better for having told me?” Porthos asks.

“I suppose so. Porthos, I am so very, very sorry.”

“Now, none of that,” Porthos frowns at him. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“But I do. This time I do.”

Porthos takes in the distress on Aramis’ face. “All right,” he says quietly. “Then I forgive you, Aramis.”

“You don’t even know what you’re forgiving.”

“And I don’t have to. You’re forgiven – that’s all I have to say about it.”

Aramis looks down and the quiet stretches. With his face hidden Porthos cannot tell what he is thinking. “Thank you,” he says finally. “You cannot know what that means to me.”

“Now let me sleep,” Porthos grumbles. “I haven’t slept properly in days.”

Aramis helps Porthos to lay flat upon the bed, then brings a basin of water and a cloth and a pile of bandages.

“I will watch over you,” Aramis says, commencing to wipe up the blood Porthos has spilled.

“Of course you will,” Porthos sighs.

Whatever Aramis feels he needs to atone for, Porthos need not worry over his own safety for the moment. In time – probably of short duration – Aramis will get over it, and that is fine with Porthos. But meanwhile Porthos will probably be the safest person in all of France. It is a comforting thought, and one that leads him into slumber with a trace of a smile on his face.


End file.
